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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29206893">abominable</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellsreluctantheir/pseuds/hellsreluctantheir'>hellsreluctantheir</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode: s05e17 99 Problems, M/M, Queer Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:47:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,351</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29206893</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellsreluctantheir/pseuds/hellsreluctantheir</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Anyway. Turned out he’d had demon blood flowing through him ever since he was six months old, so maybe it wasn’t just the queer thing making him feel weird in churches.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Paul (Supernatural: 99 Problems)/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>abominable</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For all the Sam prayed, he didn’t like churches when they were filled with people.</p><p>He and Dean had stayed with Pastor Jim enough growing up that he’d spent a lot of time in church but a relatively small proportion when Mass was in service. Mostly when there were only a few people around, maybe praying in the pews, maybe lighting a candle. When it was quiet, and easy, and conversations had to be kept soft. Dean hated it, but Pastor Jim didn’t mind answering Sam’s questions, whether they were about monsters, the bible, or his homework, just as long as they didn’t interrupt the parishioners.</p><p>There was another priest at the church too, who Sam didn’t talk to much. Didn’t even know if the man knew about the true monsters in the world. He knew that his least favourite thing was Mass when the other man preached. They didn’t stay every time, if Jim wasn’t running the service sometimes he’d take them somewhere else, but when they did. Sat on hard wooden pews, unable to twist himself to sit comfortably, listening to a tirade against sinners.</p><p>Sam was thirteen and being knocked over by Bryce Turner during PE had set his heart pounding for reasons completely unrelated to the air being knocked out of him.</p><p>Three weeks later he was back in Minnesota listening to this absolute asshole quote Leviticus and- After, Jim seemed to realise something was off. He let Sam hole up in his office until the church was mostly empty again, the congregation finished with their conversations.</p><p>“Do you think it’s all true?” Sam asked. “God needs you to follow all those rules?”  He couldn’t bring himself to specify.</p><p>The way Jim was looking at Sam made him think he might’ve guessed. “I think it’s doctrine,” he said. “And some people find doctrine helpful, but it was written by men. So it has all the same failures as men do.”</p><p>Sam let out a long, shaky breath. “Ok,” he said.</p><p>Gently, Jim said, “Is there a reason you’re asking?”</p><p>“No,” Sam said. Then, quieter, “I just worry. That there’s something wrong with me and-”</p><p>“Hey,” Jim says, gripping his shoulder, “Sam. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re the way God made you.”</p><p>Sam’s breath got shakier. Jim pulled him into a hug. Sam stayed there for a long time.</p><p>And it helped, that conversation. Became a touchstone. After, Jim always had something else to do on Sundays when the other priest was the one delivering the sermon. It wasn’t perfect. There was still plenty to give him that feeling like his skin was the wrong size. Like there was something fundamentally bad. Not just in churches, plenty of other places too. But he breathed deep, thought about what Jim had told him. Kept moving. He tried, at Stanford. Plenty of churches around, but Sam never learned to like the services better.</p><p>Anyway. Turned out he’d had demon blood flowing through him ever since he was six months old, so maybe it wasn’t just the queer thing making him feel weird in churches.</p><p>By the time they were back in Blue Earth, Minnesota Sam was sure he had bigger sins to worry about. And it wasn’t like Pastor Jim was still around to comfort him.</p><p>“A wedding?” he asked, on edge from the fight, from dying a few scant days before, from kickstarting the damn apocalypse. “Seriously?” It was rude, for sure, luckily the only person who seemed to hear him was one of the soldiers - Paul.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said, a hint of a grimace like he agreed with Sam’s attitude. “We’ve had eight so far this week.”</p><p>It wasn’t Jim’s church. Still, Sam felt like he could breath easier once he was in the command centre in the basement, and then easier again once he was outside. It was Paul behind the bar - easy rapport with the rest of the soldiers, easy with Sam when he wanders over as well. In a different way.</p><p>“That round’s on me,” he said, with a wink and a half cocked smile.</p><p>It was warm, and it was recognisable, and it pulled at Sam’s gut. Worse as he turned back to Dean. It wasn’t- he hadn’t been hiding, but it wasn’t like he’d been picking up guys in every town, and they’d never had a conversation. Easy to miss. Idly, he wondered where coming out fell on the list of confessions he’d had to make to Dean over the years. Better or worse than being psychic, or sleeping with Ruby, or the demon blood.</p><p>He drank his beer in record time and watched where Paul was serving drinks at the other side of the bar.</p><p>It was Dean’s decision when to head back to the motel room, and Paul flipped him a salute when he looked back on his way.</p><p>They watched a kid die, and the mother spat the words, “This is your fault.” Dean looked stricken.  Sam mentally added a tally to their list. The pluses and minuses. They’d save the town, they would, he had to believe they would, but how many would they lose along the way. Then the beginning of mourning got interrupted by a vision, because apparently angels were that kind of asshole too. A church full of desperate, scared people and they got a litany of rules. Drawing a line in a sand that was just a big circle keeping them penned in.</p><p>Sam wanted to tell them being chosen by angels usually wasn’t a good thing, but he held his tongue.</p><p>Besides, what was there to say. That he’d met angels, and most of them weren’t worth the effort of trying to impress? That, as far as they could tell, God was taking an extended sabbatical and didn’t care the apocalypse had started. Sam prayed for Dylan’s soul, but he couldn’t tell where faith ended and habit began.</p><p>Dean went back to the church, but Sam couldn’t deal with the people anymore so he slid into the tavern.</p><p>Paul leaned over the bar to meet him, and they talked, and it was all that warmth and recognition. When Sam kissed him, Paul’s smile was slow and sweet as dripping honey and all he said was, “I should make sure everything’s cleaned up before curfew.”</p><p>Were the angels watching, he thought, as he flaunted the rules they’d laid down. And, sure this particular set of rules from a soft-spoken midwestern preacher hadn’t said anything specific about ‘perverts’ but Sam had heard enough sermons from enough churches to read between the lines. Even if it mattered, it was far from the only thing damning him, and he won’t give this up, the warmth, the burn, Paul’s hand curled in his shirt as he tugged him behind the bar.</p><p>Dean asked where he’d been and he said, “Drinking,” with the taste of Paul still on his tongue.</p><p>Anyway, it wasn’t God, it wasn’t angels, it was just more demons, and it should have been obvious from the get go. Castiel was sitting beside him on the couch, still smelling strongly of whiskey, calling Sam an abomination like it was obvious, because it was. Dean’s eyes flickered to Sam like he was waiting for him to protest.</p><p>What would he say anyway? The knees of his jeans were still damp because Paul had just finished mopping the floors when Sam sucked him off. </p><p>He still had demon blood in him.</p><p>He still dreamed about the devil.</p><p>Sitting sides pressed together on the bar floor, arms slung over each other - laughing and warm in the knowledge that there were still things that were good. They didn’t last forever, they didn’t even last long, but they were bright enough to dispel the darkness. Paul had turned his head and pressed his lips to the point of Sam’s jaw, then again an inch in, worked his way along to his mouth and kissed him properly.</p><p>It did not feel like sin. It did not feel like an act of rebellion. It felt like an act of reverence.</p><p>It felt divine.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You can find me on <a href="https://hellsreluctantheir.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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